468 A MA^LAL OF AMERICAN LAND SHELLS. 



(?), &c. It also inhabits Greenland and Iceland (see Morch, Am. Journ. 

 Conch., lY, 45). 



Animal: Head and neck blackish, with a slight tinge of brown; eye- 

 peduncles and tentacles smoky ; eyes black ; base of foot inky, poste- 

 rior extremity dirty flesh-color. Foot rather slender, terminating acutely. 

 Respiratory foramen surrounded with a blackish circle. Genital orifice 

 indicated by a blackish spot a little behind the right eye-peduncle. 

 Length about twice the breadth of the shell. (See Bost. Journ. Nat. 

 Hist, I, Plate VIII.) 



Having kept a large number of this species in confinement, Dr. Binney 

 had frequently an opportunity of noticing the manner in which the 

 epiphragm is formed, a process which seems not to have been hereto- 

 fore correctly described. The aperture of the shell being upwards, 

 and the collar of the animal having been brought to a level with it, a 

 quantity of gelatinous matter is thrown out, which covers it. The pul- 

 monary orifice is then opened, and a portion of the air within suddenly 

 ejected with such force as to separate the viscid matter from the collar 

 and to project it, like a bubble of air, from the ai>erture. The animal 

 then quickly withdraws further into the shell, and the pressure of the 

 external air forces back the vesicle to a level with the aperture, when it 

 hardens and forms the epiphragm. In some of the European species, in 

 which the gelatinous secretion contains more carbonate of lime than 

 ours, solidification seems to take place at the moment when the air is 

 expelled, and the epiphragm in these is strongly convex. 



The T. nemoralis, of Europe, distinguished readily from T. hortensis by 

 Fig- 512. ^ its black peristome, but by many considered 



identical, does not appear to have been in- 

 troduced from Europe into the New England 

 States or British i)rovinces. In 1857 I im- 

 r'nevwraiis. portcd scvcral hundred living specimens from 



near Sheffield, England, and freed them in my garden, in Burlington, 

 N. J. They have thriven well and increased with great rapidity, so 

 that in 1878 the whole town was full of them. They are not so plenty 

 now (1885). They retain the habit of the species of climbing hedges 

 and trees, not remaining concealed under decaying leaves, logs, &c., 

 like the American snails. Fig. 512 is drawn from Burlington specimens. 

 The experiment of introducing the T. nemoralis is interesting, as show- 

 ing the adaptability of the species to a new climate. Other species, 

 among them Campylcca lapicida, from England, and Stenogyra decoUata^ 



